Resource Access and Development Policy in Africa

1
Resource Access and Development Policy in Africa

• Ben Cousins
• Programme for Land and Agrarian Studies
• University of the Western Cape

2
Land in Africa conference, London Nov 2004

• Present were ministers, policy makers, opinion
  leaders, activists and researchers
• Recommendations to Commission for Africa
• Two key issues
• Understand the links between property rights,
  investment and generation of economic
  opportunities, in context of global integration
• Identify how best to secure access to land for
  farmers and urban poor as basis for improved
  livelihoods and food security

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Equitable access to land is central to democracy,
sustainable development

• History of conquest, settlement and market
  development important to understand current
  context and challenges
• Secure land rights critical to economic growth
  and equipping African agriculture to face
  challenges of globalisation
• Secure rights important for millions of small
  farmers, not just investors
• Growth of African cities challenges for urban/
  peri-urban land management
• Government ownership and management of land needs
  to become more accountable
• Public dialogue and civil society capacity needs
  to be strengthened

4
Land is relevant to the peace and security agenda

• Competition for land and natural resources helps
  generate conflict and insecurity
• Eg. land seizures, evictions of migrants, ethnic
  cleansing
• Important to find ways to resolve disputes early
  on before they can escalate
• Establishing an accountable basis for managing
  land an important element of institution
  building in post conflict settings

5
Securing rights challenges, innovations

• There are may ways to secure property rights,
  whether at individual or collective level
• Blueprint, one-size-fits-all solutions should
  give way to locally appropriate initiatives and
  actions
• The state plays a fundamental role in
  facilitating the process
• Best done in a decentralised manner, in
  partnership with local institutions that can
  check and validate claims

6
Securing rights challenges, innovations

• Great progress made in testing new approaches to
  securing rights
• Formal titling has proved to be slow, expensive,
  hard to keep up-to-date, hard fort poor farmers
  to access
• Titling neither sufficient nor necessary for
  tenure security, and can produce conflict
• Ethiopia, Mozambique, Benin show how rights can
  be registered at lower cost and in simplre ways
• Often registration less important than than
  strengthening local institutions

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Securing rights challenges, innovations

• If diverse options are recognised, approaches can
  be tailored to different settings
• Upgrading of rights and systems can take place
  over time in response to demand
• Costs and techniques of land administration need
  to match the value of land (GPS, GIS,
  computerised records can help)
• Key lessons make it simple, use local knowledge,
  refine over time
• Take care in interpreting and using de Sotos
  arguments

8
Securing rights challenges, innovations

• Womens rights are particularly vulnerable, and
  customary practices are sometimes highly
  discriminatory
• Womens rights can easily be defined as
  secondary to those of men and male relatives
• Succession and inheritance rights remain
  problematic
• New legislation needs to strengthen womens
  formal rights to land eg. through co-ownership
• But law is not enough a range of supporting
  measures are needed eg. ensuring women are
  represented on land committees

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Conserving and managing the commons

• CPRs (grazing, woodlands, fisheries) are still
  vital for many peoples livelihoods, but face
  growing pressures and sometimes privatisation and
  enclosure
• Of particular significance for pastoralists, for
  whom mobility and flexibility are key
• Some see the disappearance of the commons as
  inevitable others stress their importance for
  the poor
• Management of the commons works best when secure
  legal rights for local communities comes together
  with support to enable these communities to
  manage in an equitable and sustainable manner

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What can donors do?

• Recognise that land reform and security of tenure
  require political support and commitment over the
  long term
• Acknowledge that current donor mechanisms (eg.
  PRSs) can overlook the importance of land and
  its governance
• Mainstream land issues into the wider economic
  development agenda
• Provide valuable technical support eg.land
  adminsitration
• Provide training and capacity building
• Help to build and share models of innovation

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What can donors do?

• Engage in policy dialogue to ensure radical, new
  solutions in Southern Africa
• Strengthen civil society groups and networks
• Recognise that good governance of land is key to
  peace and security
• Integrate land and broader trade, agricultute,
  urban development and governance issues
• The new emphasis on infrastructural investment
  requires sound land management
• (with acknowledgements Camilla Toulmin, IIED)